Our 15th Anniversary Concert

On June 3rd 2018, the three Cantiamo Choirs and Soprano Ellen McAteer, joined at the end by several Cantiamo alumni, gathered together at Woodroffe United Church to celebrate another year of wonderful singing and Cantiamo’s 15th Anniversary! “I would say the most meaningful thing about the concert is that it was our 15th anniversary,” said Jackie Hawley, Cantiamo’s Founding Artistic Director and conductor. “I was not expecting the choir to turn into such a significant, successful organization. To go from singing one song as a favour to a composer friend to now being 15 years going and with three choir levels is fabulous! Cantiamo was meant to be! The growth of the organization and the beauty of the singing is a testament to the many wonderful volunteers and choristers from the start that have been Cantiamo.”

The three levels of the choir each sang songs on their own, then they joined to sing and finally performed a piece all together: Voice on the Wind. This is a beautiful song written by Sarah Quartel about a girl who hears a familiar voice, and in the end realizes that the voice is her own. Sometimes we lose track of ourselves, and need to hear our own voice calling us back. This song also celebrates our many voices, not just our singing voices, but thr many other ways in which we express ourselves too.

This year, Cantiamo celebrated 15 years of community outreach, musical leadership and wonderful singing. Being part of the Cantiamo Choirs is an amazing opportunity for choristers to develop a love of singing, and we learn so much! When I asked Xue, a member of the Cantiamo Apprentice Choir what the most meaningful thing that she learned in choir this year, she replied, ” I learned how to sing harmony even more than last year. Singing in the right harmony is really hard, and an aspect of singing that we work a lot on.”

We were very lucky to have Soprano Ellen McAteer join the Cantiamo Girl’s Choir in some of their songs. “It was an absolute pleasure to sing with Cantiamo again. The choir expertly interprets a wide variety of challenging repertoire and performs with such confidence and poise. Choral singing played such an important role in my life and it is wonderful to see this next generation of musicians getting to share this experience and grow together in song,” Ellen said.

Naya, a member of the Cantiamo Training Choir said that the June concert was special to her because she thought the three choirs sounded so nicely together. “Also, I’m pretty sure everyone watching went away feeling happy. That’s important to me,” she said. This was an amazing year of singing and music in the Cantiamo Choirs, and I can’t wait until September when choir starts again.